And finally, consider the news that broke on Wednesday that Google has apparently convinced Samsung to tone down some of the excessive gimmick features that it’s included in its recent Galaxy devices and to make the user experience much more like the “pure Android” that Google promotes through its Google Play Edition smartphones. And now we’re learning that Google wants to dump Motorola into Lenovo’s arms for less than a quarter of what it originally paid for the one-time mobile icon.

Add it all up and it looks like Google and Samsung have realized that they need each other more than ever and that they should forge a closer working relationship with one another to keep Android as the world’s top mobile OS and to keep Samsung devices as the world’s top sellers. How this relationship plays out will be fascinating to watch going forward and it will be particularly interesting to see how Microsoft decides to react given that it’s been courting Samsung heavily to make more Windows Phones.